


constellations

by copperwings



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Yuri is stubborn what else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 07:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperwings/pseuds/copperwings
Summary: His fingers drop from his hair and slide over the skin above his left hipbone. On the previously unmarked expanse of skin, there is a web of dark lines, connecting to form a geometric outline of a bear.A soulmark. Yuri furrows his brow. He has a fucking soulmark, and it sure as hell wasn’t there when he showered before work. Which means the person the universe considers predestined for Yuri was at the venue tonight, prompting the emergence of the mark.Yuri frowns at the bear adorning his hip. He doesn’t subscribe to the concept of soulmates. It’s complete bullshit that someone else gets to decide who Yuri should be with.





	constellations

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for [YOI Soulmate Zine](https://yoisoulmatezine.tumblr.com/). I had so much fun taking part in this zine. ♥

Yuri blinks at his reflection in the mirror. The yellow light of the bathroom makes him look like the embodiment of sleep deprivation, but that’s to be expected because he had to work until four in the morning. He’s sure he’s going to be pouring beers in his sleep for the entire night.

His shirt is sweaty and clinging to his skin, so he starts tugging it off one-handed while trying to pry loose the messy bun his hair was in with the other. Unsurprisingly, in his current dead-tired state the attempt ends up in a disaster, and he lets go of the half-undone bun to pull the shirt off first. Yuri tugs at the hair tie that’s stuck halfway down his hair, but the bun knots and refuses to unravel. He sighs and starts undoing the strands carefully, when his eyes focus on his shirtless reflection in the mirror.

His fingers drop from his hair and slide over the skin above his left hipbone. On the previously unmarked expanse of skin, there is a web of dark lines, connecting to form a geometric outline of a bear.

_A soulmark._ Yuri furrows his brow. He has a fucking soulmark, and it sure as hell wasn’t there when he showered before work. Which means the person the universe considers predestined for Yuri was at the venue tonight, prompting the emergence of the mark.

Yuri frowns at the bear adorning his hip. He doesn’t subscribe to the concept of soulmates. It’s complete bullshit that someone else gets to decide who Yuri should be with.

It’s odd that he didn’t notice anything, though. Isn’t there supposed to be a moment of realization? That’s what Victor said about meeting Katsudon. That it was like internal fireworks and shit; some larger-than-life sensation to let you know you’ve crossed paths with the _one_?

The only sensation Yuri recalls throughout the night was snappy frustration because everyone around him was so very drunk and he himself was so very tired. No fireworks whatsoever. Maybe fate has listened to Yuri bitch about the idea of soulmates so many times it decided to play around and not give him any hints.

Yuri looks down from the mirror image to the actual mark. The skin is smooth under his touch and the bear looks like it’s always been there. There are scattered dots within the outlines of the bear, connected by a thin line. Yuri squints. It looks like a constellation. He pulls his phone out and a quick search proves what he suspected: it’s a zodiac sign.

A bear and the sign for Scorpio. Fate sure doesn’t give him a lot to work with.

 

-

 

“What is _that_?” Mila asks him three days later when she invites herself over for tea.

“What is what?” Yuri asks, looking over his shoulder at Mila who is standing by the fridge.

“On your hip, I saw it when you reached for the tea and your shirt rode up,” Mila urges. She steps closer in Yuri’s small kitchenette like she wants to pull the hem of his shirt up.

Yuri steps away and shrugs. “It’s a soulmark. It’s appeared like three days ago.”

Mila lets out a scream that makes Yuri’s ears ring. She also smacks him on the head.

“Ow, what the fuck?” Yuri holds his head and glares at Mila.

“A three-day old soulmark? On your _hip_?” Mila pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Have you been online at all? This shit is _viral_ right now.” She pulls up instagram and types into the search box. Mila holds the display in Yuri’s face as a photo pops up and Yuri finds himself looking at a picture of a hipbone. It’s a very attractive hipbone.

“He posted this across all his social media platforms, it’s been _everywhere_ over the past few days.”

He? Now that Mila said it, Yuri realizes that the hipbone is male, accompanied with toned abs and a trail of dark hair leading toward the waistband of black jeans. Above said hipbone there is a geometric outline of a tiger and inside the tiger the connect-the-dots that Yuri recognizes as his own zodiac sign. He pulls his shirt up anyway, comparing the marks. The location matches and the marks are complementary.

Mila looks from the phone to Yuri’s hip and squeals. “I can’t believe your soulmate is Otabek Altin!”

The name sounds familiar. “Who?”

“Ooh, prepare to get a lot of hate from his fan base, though,” Mila says.

Yuri looks up. “Fan base?”

Mila sighs and clicks over to the guy’s profile, showing he has millions of followers. “He’s only one of the most popular DJs ever, which you would know if you ever followed anything that happens around you. He was playing your venue—”

Three nights ago when Yuri discovered his soulmark. That’s why the name sounded familiar. Yuri snatches the phone and scrolls down Otabek Altin’s instagram. There are photos from music venues with him at the turntables in front of massive audiences, accompanied by some selfies and pictures with a sleek black motorcycle. Yuri frowns and hands the phone back. Mila spends the rest of her visit trying to convince him to get in contact with this dude, and Yuri nearly pushes her out the door after she’s done with her tea.

“Don’t you fucking tell anyone about this,” Yuri threatens. “I don’t care what the stars have decided. I didn’t choose this.”

 

-

 

Despite his aversion to fate deciding his partner for him, Yuri finds himself curious. A quick search online returns thousands of results on Otabek Altin, including a recent video interview. The title, in all caps, promises to reveal everything about the soulmark incident. Upon clicking on the video, Yuri realizes he hasn’t heard Otabek’s voice yet. Otabek must have talked during his set at the club, but at work it’s all just background noise to Yuri so he has no recollection.

Otabek’s voice is deep and concisely inflected; pleasant to listen to. When asked about the attempts at people trying to fake being his soulmate, Otabek sighs and looks at the camera. “I’ve seen dozens of half-healed hipbone tattoos over this past week. Some drawn in marker, too. And most of them have some kind of cats on them. I’m not a cat person by nature. My soulmark on my mate will be something different. Or else the stars don’t know me.”

Yuri traces a finger over the bear through his shirt, then jolts away when his brain catches on. Fuck fate. The mark doesn’t mean anything to him.

Onscreen, the interviewer laughs. “Yeah, I saw some of those attempts on twitter. Someone even compiled them into a list: worst attempts at pretending to be Otabek Altin’s soulmate. It was trending on every social media platform.”

Otabek gives a dry smile. “Yeah, I saw that.”

The interviewer smiles. “It’s no surprise that lots of people want to claim you as their soulmate. But I’m guessing it’s been a wild ride for you.”

Otabek huffs. “You could say that. In retrospect, posting my soulmark on the internet perhaps wasn’t the best idea, but I just—I don’t know. I got so excited. I just wanted to find them.” Otabek looks shy as he ducks his head and smiles at something off-screen.

Yuri feels his insides melt into mush. He clicks away from the video and slams the laptop shut. He flips a middle finger at the ceiling of his living room. He will not give fate any bragging rights by falling for this guy. He will _not_.

 

-

 

It’s been a week since the soulmark appeared, and Yuri feels sick every time he sees it in the mirror, so he stops looking at it. He starts wearing longer shirts so no one can spot the mark on him, and he goes on with his life.

Mila keeps pestering him for not doing anything about it. “Don’t you want to get to know him? He’s your _soulmate_.”

Yuri glares at her. “You know I don’t fucking believe in this bullshit. I believe in getting to know someone and _choosing_ to be with them. I don’t want some stranger tossed at me like, _here’s your soulmate, we decided it for you and you get no say in it_.”

“So you want to remain unhappy just to prove a point?” Mila asks. “That’s stupid.”

Yuri shrugs. “Maybe so, but that’s my call.”

 

-

 

Sometimes he dreams of Otabek. He curses himself for searching the guy online, because his subconscious is clearly in league with fate, and now it has plenty of material to build dreams of. In the dreams they are walking hand in hand, kissing, hugging, and the overwhelming happiness of them always leaves Yuri feeling like he’s being strangled when he wakes up. The soulmark feels increasingly warm under his touch, and the skin around the mark is irritated.

“Are you okay?” Katsudon asks when Yuri meets him and Victor for lunch. “You look pale.”

Yuri huffs. “I’m always pale as fuck, what about it?”

“There’s a difference between being pale and resembling a sheet of paper,” Victor remarks.

“Whatever.” Yuri pokes his food with his fork. He doesn’t feel like eating anything these days, because whenever he does, he wants to throw up.

It’s clear what’s happening to him: soulmark sickness. It happens when there is a discord between the souls after finding each other. It’s usually not very serious, because quarrels between soulmates are not often serious or long-lasting. However, there are records of fatalities in extreme cases.

Yuri wonders if this counts as an extreme case.

 

-

 

Around week two the mark starts to throb, and the skin around it burns like it’s on fire. There are thin red lines spreading outward from the bear and when Yuri checks his temperature, the thermometer tells him he has a fever.

“Is this your way of trying to get to me?” Yuri asks his living room ceiling as he lies on his couch and tries to keep his tea down. “I don’t play along so you kill me?”

He refuses to search for news of Otabek, but Mila counters this by retweeting everything about the guy. Yuri usually scrolls past Mila’s posts, but now a headline catches his eye: Otabek has canceled gigs due to health issues. Yuri swallows and pulls his shirt up to look at the bear on his hip. The red lines around it extend up to his ribs by now like some twisted form of soul sepsis. Yuri drops the hem and winces as the fabric touches the irritated skin.

“You don’t fucking have to kill him too,” Yuri tells the ceiling. “This is not his fault.”

 

-

 

Two more days of agony pass before there’s a knock on the door. When Yuri opens the door, Mila takes one look at him and whips out her phone. “That’s it, I’m emailing his representatives.”

“No.” Yuri doesn’t have to ask whose representatives she means. He struggles to grab the phone from her hand, but Mila holds him at an arm’s length easily while she types with the other. Yuri grimaces. He’s weak as fuck because he hasn’t managed to keep his food down for days and his fever is on the rise. The world sways around him.

Mila looks at him sternly. “Yura, you have soulmark sickness. I’m not letting you kill yourself because you’re so fucking stubborn. And I’m not letting you kill him either.”

At the last words, something inside Yuri twists so painfully that he doubles over. Black dots swim across his field of vision, and the soulmark burns like someone poured acid over it. He can hear Mila talking, but her voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. There is a darkness closing in on him, and Yuri feels that once the light is gone, this will be over for him.

“I don’t want him to die,” Yuri manages before the darkness takes him.

 

-

 

Yuri wakes up to a weird feeling. It’s as if every time until now he’s woken up missing a piece of himself, only he didn’t realize it until he woke up feeling _whole_. He’s lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. Outside the window, the sun is rising.

There’s a strange sensation around his left hand. Yuri turns his head slowly, eyes following the line of his arm below the hospital gown sleeve, past the pale expanse of his forearm and finally to his fingers that are entwined with another set of fingers.

Someone is holding his hand. It feels like he’s gotten back a lost limb; it feels so right. There’s no other way to put it; the hand _belongs_ in his. Yuri blinks, uncomprehending, and his gaze slides up the arm that’s adjoined to the hand, past the shoulder and to the face he’s never looked at before except in his dreams and through a computer screen.

Otabek Altin is lying on a bed pushed right next to his, looking like he’s been through hell twice over without getting any snacks on the way. Despite his ragged appearance, he’s awake and watching Yuri with solemn brown eyes.

Yuri swallows. He means to apologize, but what comes out instead is, “You look like shit.” Which is probably not the best way to greet the man fate stubbornly keeps pushing his way. “I mean, I’m sorry for making you look like shit?” he offers.

Otabek gives an amused smile and squeezes Yuri’s hand. “Good to meet you too.”

Yuri’s insides twist at the sound of Otabek’s voice, but this time it’s not pain he feels. It’s joy like he’s never felt before.

Yuri looks up at the ceiling and huffs. “Fine. You win.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ofcopperwings), [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/copperwings) or [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/).   
> -  
> Thanks to my lovely beta [thoughtsappear](https://thoughtsappear.tumblr.com/).


End file.
